Sweat Journal

Those are just a few of the things you’re bound to come in contact with when you’re a female athlete in high school. No matter what sport you specialized in, girls who were into athletics never seemed to get enough credit. Sure, you may have had a losing record, but you worked just as hard as the boys did! Not to mention that you had to work with other girls, who surprisingly, are a lot meaner than guys are in the locker room.

If you were a girl who played sports in high school, you can relate to at least one of the following:

Wearing your practice to clothes to school so you wouldn’t have to change later

The weird looks you got from your principal, teachers, and occasionally your fellow students didn’t keep you from staying true to your commitment, either. If you were really a pro at this tactic, your practice clothes were also your pajamas, so you never actually that ready for school or practice. Some might call it lazy, but jocks considered it to be genius. Not only were you bound to make it to practice on time, falling asleep in class was a lot easier done in the comfort of your workout sweats.

Forgetting to your Sports Bra would ruin your day

You never realized how much you truly needed a sports bra at practice until your first day without one. You’d rummage through your practice bag 10 times before you’d accept the fact that you’d left it at home. There’s no point in asking a teammate to borrow one — even if that were sanitary, back-up sports bras weren’t very easy to come by. Better hope today isn’t a jumping jack day!

You passed deodorant around like a black-market drug

Sharing is caring, right? No one wanted to be the girl sporting pit stains when the football team passed by. And don’t let anyone find out you had body odor for a day — you’re liable to be called “Stinky Sarah” or “Smelly Shelly” for the rest of the season. Any antiperspirant preferences you once exercised at home were completely thrown out of the window once your locker-room desperation set-in.

You were in a gym instead of at the mall

You often had to tell your friends, “Sorry, can’t go to the mall after school. Got practice.”

Your hair was a part of your uniform

Which explained why it always took girls so much longer in the locker room than boys. If your team was really close, you’d all show up on game day rocking the same exact hairstyle. Sometimes you’d even add matching ribbons to your pigtails, but only on special occasions, like the state championships.

You’ve used cramps as an excuse to get out of practice

And not once did you feel guilty about it! This would always work with your male coach… but your female coach? Try again.

If you were lucky enough to have a guy as a coach, you knew that pushing cramps would earn you a “Get outta practice free” card because he had no desire to go “there” with one of his players.

The thought of wearing bathing suits made you weary…

… because you had actual concerns about what your uniform had done to your tan lines.

It’s not your fault coach had you out in the hot sun for hours in an uptight uniform! Girls who didn’t play sports in high school will never understand the struggle of spending an entire summer trying to even out your tan lines.

Your sexual orientation was occasionally debated at school

You often dealt with a lot of ignorant commentary like, “All [insert sport here] players are lesbians,” but you became used to it by your sophomore year. Sure, you got into a few heated arguments along the way, but never anything physical since even a few of the guys were secretly convinced that you’d beat them in a fight.

You couldn’t forget the words to cheers even if you tried.

“HEY, PITCHER! LOOK AT ME. I’M A MONKEY IN A TREE — AH-WOO-AH-AH-AH.”

… you get the point.

You knew better than to get in the way of teammates fighting

Whether it was over a boy or who deserved to start in the next game, you can think of more than one loss you suffered because two of your teammates couldn’t settle their differences… but then, of course, they were friends again the next day.

Team sleepovers were always interesting

Baking, gossiping, and occasional pranking were all features of a team sleepover. Occasionally you’d even get the opportunity to air your grievances, i.e., “It really hurt me feelings when you didn’t pass the ball to me in last year’s championship game.”

You were undoubtedly in the best shape of you life

Not to say that you’ve picked up weight or anything like that. You just um.. aren’t as active as you once were. You’ve now come to appreciate the structure of a planned workout, even though you hated your coach for forcing one on you in high school.

Leaving school early for an away game made you feel like a celebrity

The best part about leaving school early for a game was having it announced on the speaker system and bidding a pleasant farewell to your classmates. “Oh, you guys are staying until the 3:15 Bell? I’m not.”

It was either that, or something else along the lines of “See-Ya! Wouldn’t wanna be-ya!”

And even if you never had siblings, you knew what it was like to have 10+ sisters

Because at the end of the day, your teammates were like family.

“Much better than an armband for me. When I run outside, I almost always run with my phone- usually for music, a podcast and maybe a picture. I’ve struggled to find something that doesn’t flop around or isn’t too big for my arm. You slip your phone into the SlimClip and you slip it right on the side of your pants where the waist band is. I wasn’t sure how I would like this or if it would bounce around, but it stayed right in place. It’s especially perfect for an easy long run.”